A NIGHT IN THE HILLS

By:  Paz Marquez Benitez

Author’s Background: Paz Márquez-Benítez (1894–1983) was a Filipina short-story writer. She also wrote the short story “Dead Stars”.

Vocabulary:

Glimmer - shine faintly with a wavering light.

Intermittently - at irregular intervals; not continuously or steadily.

Imperious - arrogant and domineering.
Diminish - make or become less.

Triumphantly - In a way that shows great happiness or joy at a victory or achievement.
Stammer - speak with sudden involuntary pauses and a tendency to repeat the initial letters of words.

Contrive - create or bring about (an object or a situation) by deliberate use of skill and artifice.

Characters:

Gerardo Luna – Protagonist, a jewelry store sales person.

Gerardo’s Wife – Greedy, against his plan of pursuing his dreams.

Ambo – Orchid Gatherer.

Sotera – Mistress/Sister.

Peregrina – Future wife.

Setting:

Manila

Summary

Gerardo Luna dreamt of wanting to go to the forest, he imagined a beautiful image of the forest in his dream. He only spoke of this dream once, to a gatherer of orchids named Ambo as he wanted to buy some cheap earrings for his wife’s store. Ambo proudly talks about how well his orchid business was going this season. Gerardo was only interested about the image portrayed by Ambo about the forest where he found the orchids while Gerardo’s wife was more on the business aspect of Ambo’s story as told by Gerardo. Gerardo proposed venturing over to the forest, but his wife, again, was focused on business while Gerardo simply wanted to experience living in the forest for once. He brought it up to his wife after disagreeing in their previous conversation. His wife passed away, he took it as a cue to make his dream come true. Ambo arrived once more with tales about his adventures, and a proposal for Gerardo to accompany him to locate a proper land. He took this opportunity and came up with an excuse to leave the town. His sister Sotera proposed a plan to keep their pawnshop running, she wants him to marry Peregina. He did not want to decide on that now; he wanted to go to the forest with Ambo. After they arrived at the forest, he explored the beautiful sceneries and spoke with a high school dropout who wanted to work in Manila. Evening has come; he fell asleep as the bonfire was lit. He woke up 2 hours later and started getting paranoid about his surroundings due to the fire going dim. Though Ambo assured Gerardo that he would gather more wood to burn, he forgot. Gerardo had a difficult time falling asleep once more, as he cannot think of anything but the darkness surrounding him. He could not sleep. He felt absolutely alone. Aloneness was like hunger in that it drove away sleep. After his experience in the forest, he returned home and spoke to Peregrina saying: ““Pereg, as soon as I get these clothes off I shall come to ask you a question that is very—very important to me.”

Symbolism:

The bonfire symbolizes the reality of things, the dimmer it gets, the more you start lying to yourself by being paranoid about all sorts of things that’re none-existent in the first place.

Theme:

Expectation vs. Reality

Lesson:

Not everything is always what is seems, for a moment you think it would turn out to be a fun experience but it becomes the other way around.